Decorating

Benefits sprout up from vegetable gardening

Some schools have included vegetable gardening as part of their curriculum.

Photograph by: Fotolia
, Postmedia News

As a kid, cleaning dirt off a carrot meant a couple of quick swipes across my jeans. To be honest, I don't remember tasting the dirt, but I vividly recall the joy of pulling the first carrot of the season out of the garden and enjoying its crunchy texture and sweet taste.

I often had a black ring around my mouth because I ate a lot of carrots straight from the garden. So did most of the kids I knew. Sadly, vegetable gardening declined to the point that many kids never experienced that ring-around-the-mouth syndrome, nor tasted the sweetness of a just-pulled carrot. But, thankfully, the current resurgence in edible gardens means more kids will learn the joys of gardening. So this year, even if you're not a gardener, consider a couple of pots or a small veggie or fruit patch and change the way your family looks at food. Here are my Top 10 reasons why your kids should be sporting a black ring around their mouths this summer.

1. Kids who are actively engaged in food gardening are much more likely to eat what they've helped to grow. So, if your child doesn't like carrots or broccoli, the chances of her trying some will be much greater if she made it.

2. When kids are munching away in a pea patch, they're not at computers or parked in front of TVs snacking on chips and soft drinks. Fill their stomachs with tasty, nutritious peas and carrots, and there'll be way less room for junk food.

3. Getting to the pea patch also means kids have to get out of the computer chair or off the couch, open the door, walk to the garden and bend over to pick the vegetables. This is commonly referred to as exercise, which in conjunction with a good balanced diet helps to combat childhood obesity. Every bit helps.

4. Vegetable gardening will teach children that the round, red things found in grocery stores are just facsimiles of the homegrown tomato. Kids who say they hate tomatoes might only hate the mushy, tasteless fruit that's common to many grocery stores. I hate those kinds of tomatoes, too. A sweet, juicy homegrown tomato might just change their opinions.

5. You can show young gardeners that the transportation of vegetables doesn't have to involve bins and tractor-trailers. When you grow food in your own yard, all you need is a pail or bag and a pair of shoes (optional) and the word "carbon" disappears from your footprint.

6. Besides being environmentally sound, vegetable gardens are also excellent settings to learn about some "ologies." There's nothing like a few potato beetles or cabbage worms to educate children (and adults, for that matter) about ecology and entomology. National Geographic online has great bug photographs and articles, but nothing compares to picking beetles and worms off plants to truly understand the natural world.

7. In a garden, kitchen food waste takes on a whole new meaning. When kids discover that kitchen scraps become compost, which in turn is food for plants, it teaches them that the term waste is often a misnomer.

8. The true value of water is more clearly understood when you have to lug a 20-litre (that's five gallons and heavy in either system!) water can across the yard or when a plant withers and dies from dehydration. Water is a precious resource. You can emphasize that point with another bit of science: A head of lettuce is 95 per cent water.

9. Gardening also teaches our kids about sharing. Whether they want to or not, they'll likely have to share their harvest with rabbits, deer, porcupines and voles, or perhaps elk, moose and bears (if you live in a more rural area). It might also make kids realize that even cute Disney-like animals need timeouts.

10. Finally, at the risk of offending hand-sanitizer manufacturers and germophobes, put away the disinfectant and grow a crop of free-range kids, who thoroughly engage in gardening. Because the best reason I know to get kids growing is to see a bunch of dirt-ringed smiles.

To keep abreast of what's new in the gardening world, follow facebook.com/HolesGreenhouses.

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